Zinnia Blows Up The TV
Back at the bad family's residence, Sadria started to pry the turban off of Jafar's head with a set of army scissors. Jafar was furious. "I will not be the figure of ridicule! I want respect and I want it now!" Zinnia was reading in her usual chair while Amir had already started to eat his TV dinner. Sadria never learned how to cook, so snack foods and TV dinners were the main meal for this family, not that the older three minded, as they liked to watch television while eating. Jafar grunted as Sadria continued cutting around the base of the hat, trying to get it off. "I still don't see how you glued your hat on, Jafar. I mean, I know you say you didn't, but obviously, you did." "I did not glue my hat to my head. The headdress shrunk, the fibers fused to my hair!" Zinnia rolled her eyes and continued to read her book. "Baby, wait a minute. I'm getting it now. One more." Sadria was right, as the hat now came off, revealing Jafar's messed up hair again. "Oh my, God." She laughed. Jafar was livid as he looked into the handheld mirror. He put the mirror back down and declared, "From now on, this family does exactly what I say, when exactly, when I say it!" "Here's your hat, Jafar." Sadria smiled as she handed the remnants of the turban back to her husband. "Give me that." Jafar sneered as he grabbed it and threw it to the ground before moving his table towards him so he could eat his TV dinner. "And right now, we are eating dinner and watching TV." He furiously turned the television onto his favorite show, The Million Dollar Sticky. "Are you ready to get sticky with Mickey?!" shouted the announcer on the screen and the crowd exploded with cheers. Zinnia was still reading though. Jafar turned to Amir. "Turn your light off." Amir did as he was told. As the announcer explained how the game show worked, Jafar then turned to Zinnia, who not only had her light on but was also still reading. Jafar hated that. He slammed the silverware down and got up from his chair. He stomped over to the girl and frowned at her. Zinnia looked up at her father with little concern. "Hi, dad." Her father never paid her any attention when something good was going on, only when trouble was afoot. "Are you in this family?" Zinnia sighed. She knew this was going to be trouble. "Hello? Are you in this family?" Jafar turned off Zinnia's light. "Dinner time is family time." Zinnia resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Her father rarely treated her like a member of the family, and the fact that they had no documents she could find of herself even existing only served to prove that matter. She would have run away, but she had nowhere to run, and they knew it. "What is this trash you're reading?" "It's not trash, daddy, it's lovely," she replied. "It's called Moby Dick by Herman Melville." "Moby what?!" Jafar lost it. He grabbed the book and started to tear out pages of it, much to Zinnia's horror. "This is filth! Trash here!" "It's not mine! It's a library book!" Zinnia cried out as one of her favorite stories was shredded right in front of her eyes. I hope my allowance will cover that... oh, how am I going to explain all this to Eden? "I'm fed up with all this reading!" Jafar yelled. "You are a member of this clan, and it is time you started acting like one!" Zinnia would have argued that he had found no evidence of even a birth certificate saying she was a member of this "family", but she knew that his parents didn't have any idea that he had read everything in the house years ago. Jafar grabbed Zinnia by the head. "Sit up and look at the TV." He held the girl's head in place and forced her to watch as a contestant was covered in a sticky goop to try and collect money. Zinnia was furious. What right did her father, if she could really even call him that, have to tear up books from the library? What right did he have to force his second child to stay home every day instead of letting her go to school to learn? What right did she have to call a literary treasure like Moby Dick trash when he himself had probably never read a book in his life? The other members of the family were laughing as the man on TV kept trying to stick money onto himself. Zinnia glared at the TV and wished it would explode. A moment later, Zinnia had found that her wishes had been granted. The television had exploded, scaring all in the family but her. "AAAAH!!! AAAAH!!! AAAAH!!! AAAAH!!! AAAAAAAAAH!!!!!" Sadria screamed as the explosions happened. "I didn't do it." Were the first words out of her mouth, and yet, in her mind, she felt that she had. If they don't throw it away, I'll fix it later... Zinnia thought, knowing she had learned a lot from the books that her father so hated. "Of course you didn't do it, you little twit," Jafar grumbled. He had been holding the girl's head in place and the child had been nowhere near the TV. "I told you that was a cheap set." Sadria slowly made her way towards the smoking set behind Jafar. "It's not a cheap set, it's a stolen set!" The box fizzled a little more, threatening to do more damage. "Whoa. Turn your light on!" Once again, Amir did as told, before going to check the damage with his parents. "Bummer," said Amir in dismay and shock. As he, Jafar, and Sadria all went to inspect the damage, while blowing away all the smoke, Zinnia stayed behind in her chair, watching them. She felt envy. Genie showed up again, facing the viewers. "Was it magic? Or just a coincidence? She didn't know." He addressed the audience. "It is said that human beings use only a tiny portion of their brains. Zinnia might never have discovered her own great strength of mind, were it not for the events that began on the very next day." Category:Fan Fiction Category:Matilda Fanmakes